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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Schmoe" data-source="post: 891270" data-attributes="member: 913">True, but one of the most blatant failings of the CR system has always been NPC's.  Even the most basic premise is flawed, as an 11th level NPC does not have the same amount of gear as an 11th level PC.  Start with a basic assumption (false, but it proves the point):A CR 11 creature should use up 100% of the resources of an 11th level PC, or 50% of the resources of two PC's, or 25% of the resources of four PC's.  This is essentially where the "4 equal CR encounters then done" rule comes from.  However, an 11th level NPC does not equal an 11th level PC, from the sheer imbalance in equipment.  Therefore, an 11th level NPC is strictly less than a CR 11 encounter.This becomes even more flawed, because increasing the numbers of PC's exponentially increases their capabilities, such that four PC's working in concert can take on much, much more than four times the opponent that a single PC could take on.  So, when a monster is judged to be a CR 11, it is judged to be a suitable encounter for 4 PC's.  However, this same monster, if it were to take on a PC one-on-one, would be far more than an even threat, and would most likely win the battle.  So the discrepancy between monster CR's and NPC CR's is even more exaggerated than it otherwise would be.I haven't yet come up with a satisfactory solution to NPC CR's, but level - 1 or 2 seems to be a pretty good approximation.  Anyway, I'm very glad to see that they are spreading out the CR's of the fiends.  My campaign has a large contingent of devils, and I'm getting frustrated with the horde of enemies stuck at the CR 6-10 range.  Sure, I can advance the creatures, but HD advancement doesn't always work out well, and adding multiple class levels can take a lot of time.  It looks like it will be easier for me to create interesting and challenging encounters for a long time to come.And yeah, the 3.0 Pit Fiend was a wimp <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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